It depends on how far the 54 is extended. If it's only extended to Larpenteur and White Bear then it shouldn't be an issue, but I think going all the way to Maplewood Mall isn't going to have too many detrimental effects either. I think it will be a big win to connect east side riders to the Hospital on Smith as well as a one-seat ride to the Airport and MOA.

Resurrecting this thread after nearly 2 years of silence. I was skimming the draft update to the 2017-2020 TIP and see that the D Line (first time seeing that name in an official Met Council document) is in the TIP, with a planned opening date of 2020/2021 and a tentative budget of $77MM. This hasn't changed from TCmetro's link above (non-working) which penciled in the same numbers 2 years ago.

We'll have to see how things go with the C Line getting fully funded ($36MM total) before we can even dream about this one becoming a reality. $77MM is a lot for a project that won't be getting any money from CTIB. It's pretty much hoping and praying on federal and Met Council money and a big chunk of the ~2018 bonding bill. Other than "it's the busiest bus line in the region", I think it's going to be a real uphill battle to secure that much funding. The City Council and state legislators are going to have to become champions of this specific project for that to happen, and with the long slate of projects ahead of this one (Orange, SW, Bottineau, C Line, streetcar?), there just doesn't seem to be a way this will get political headwinds until some of those are actually under construction. My concern is that the political capacity doesn't exist to even begin paying attention to this project until 2018 at the soonest (when at least Orange, SW, and C will be under construction.) I guess the important thing for the next ~2 years is that the D Line project is funded for study and engineering, which I'm guessing could cost $5MM for a corridor this long.

mattaudio wrote:Too bad Minneapolis can't cough up $15-20M a year for aBRT. Well, we should.

I'd settle for $5MM/year even. If you figure opening a Minneapolis-centric aBRT line every other year, beginning with the C Line in 2019 and the D Line in 2021, that would be a $10MM city contribution for each project. That's actually a lot when you assume a big chunk of FTA money will pay for the new buses, a Met Council contribution, the fact that the D Line also runs through Brooklyn Center, Richfield, and Bloomington, etc. Maybe the city contribution could be equivalent to half the cost of the stations inside city limits or something.

We're working on that, but it's tricky. We think they just spaced these stops out without doing much analysis of the land use around them. At a minimum, we'd like to see stops at 48th and 46th (for transfer to the 46).

But it may make sense to try to hit the old streetcar nodes, in addition to the transfer at 46th: 38th, 41st (maybe not?), 44th, 46th (transfer), 48th, 52nd (spliting the Parkway and 53rd nodes).

Clearly they are fine spacing things differently with the 54th and 56th Street stops, or 60th/Chicago to 60th/Portland. Skipping 48th and Chicago is not acceptable.

Not sure I love the perception of Minneapolis getting SW, Bottineau, Orange, half of A and lines B, C, D, and E before anyone considers the E 7th line, especially with several reconstruction projects planned or upcoming for the 2020-period. Maybe that timeline will shift once Riverview/Rush planning is complete, but man.